The Galerie des Grands Hommes

The Galerie des Grands Hommes

Why speak of this Montaigne that doesn’t appear to resemble him much, or at least doesn’t resemble the idea I have formed of the author of the Essays (Richelieu, room 225)? Because it is part of the Galerie des Grands Hommes, alongside Corneille, Racine, and Pascal. Its presence testifies to the continuity of writer worship beyond the Revolution and the fall of the Ancien Régime: the Comte d’Angiviller, director of the Bâtiments du Roi (a sort of minister of culture), commissioned Corneille from Caffieri in 1778, Pascal from Pajou in 1779, and Racine from Boizot in 1783 for the Salle des Antiques du Louvre (currently the Salle des Caryatides); and the Directory commissioned from Jean-Baptiste Stouf this Montaigne, exhibited at the Salon de 1800, for the “Muséum du Louvre,” as it was then called. The three statues moved just across the Seine with the Institut de France, where they stayed for a long while before traveling to Versailles and then returning to the Louvre, their original home. What bothers me about this ancient-style Montaigne, holding a quill pen in his right hand, is the mirror in his other hand. The Essays are a self-portrait, but not a selfie. Philautia, the love of oneself, is the ultimate illusion: self-deception. The book is not a mirror.